Getting it into your agent
It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/bestagentkits/agency-skillsnpx agentmods add skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-reviewWrote this? Show the measurements
A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.
[](https://agentmods.dev/skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-review)<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-review"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-review/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-review"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/bestagentkits/agency-skills/cto-review.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>What it costs to keep this loaded
Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.
| Model | Per session | Once invoked |
|---|---|---|
| Fable 5.1 | $0.00053 | $0.00882 |
| Opus 5 | $0.00026 | $0.00441 |
| Sonnet 5 | $0.00011 | $0.00176 |
| Haiku 4.5 | $0.00005 | $0.00088 |
Grade A, and why
cto-review scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.
A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.
Nothing flagged
None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.
How it starts
The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 118 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.
/cs:cto-review — CTO Forcing Questions
Command: /cs:cto-review <plan>
Pressure-tests architecture and engineering scaling decisions. Six questions to surface the next scaling cliff before you hit it.
When to Run
- Before approving a major architecture change
- Before doubling the engineering team
- Before a build-vs-buy decision > $100K/year
- When a system is showing reliability stress (SLOs missed)
- Before committing to a new platform / language / DB
The Six CTO Questions
1. Scaling Cliff
Where does the current architecture break, in terms of users / requests / data volume?
- Be specific. "It breaks at 10× current load because the primary DB writes saturate."
- If you don't know, run a load test before deciding.
2. Tech Debt Inventory
What's the top tech debt item, what's it costing per week, and when does it become blocking?
python ../../../skills/cto-advisor/scripts/tech_debt_analyzer.py
3. Team Scaling
For each open req, what's the ramp time and contribution model?
python ../../../skills/cto-advisor/scripts/team_scaling_calculator.py
4. Build vs Buy
Why are we building this instead of buying it — and what's the 3-year TCO of each?
- If "we want control" or "it's not that hard" — push back.
- If the answer is "this is our core moat," build.
5. SLO / Reliability
What are the SLOs for this system and what's the current error budget burn?
- Without an SLO, you can't reason about reliability tradeoffs.
- See
engineering/slo-architectfor SLO design.
6. Security & Compliance Surface
What does this expose, and has cs-ciso-advisor signed off?
- Architecture decisions are compliance decisions.
- Loop in cs-ciso-advisor before commit.
Workflow
- Run the tech debt analyzer + team scaling calculator
- Define the scaling-cliff hypothesis explicitly
- Cross-check with cs-ciso-advisor for security implications
- Apply the verdict
Output Format
# CTO Review: <plan>
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
## Scaling Cliff
- Current capacity: <metric>
- Break point: <metric>
- Headroom: X months at current growth
## Tech Debt
- Top item: <description>
- Cost per week: $X or N eng-hours
- Blocking date estimate: <date>
## Team
- Open reqs: N
- Median ramp: X months
- Contribution model: <pairing / squad / area>
## Build vs Buy
- 3-year build TCO: $X
- 3-year buy TCO: $X
- Strategic fit: <core / context>
- Decision: BUILD | BUY
## Reliability
- SLO defined: yes / no
- Error budget burn: X% (target < Y%)
## Security
- cs-ciso sign-off: ✅ / ❌
## Verdict
🟢 SHIP | 🟡 SHARPEN | 🔴 BLOCK
## Next Steps
[3 concrete actions]
What ships with it
1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.
What this file has done since we first saw it
Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.
- 9d ago First seen · 118 lines · 53 tokens per session scan A c800c8619626
cto-review is a skill published in the GitHub repository bestagentkits/agency-skills (12 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 53 tokens to every session and 882 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.
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